Staff profiles

• Teaching Director+, Edinburgh Futures Institute

I was born in Arnhem, the Netherlands and did my first degree at the University of Groningen (after a year in France at Rennes II), before moving to Scotland to do my PhD at the University of St Andrews. I loved it so much that I simply never went back home. From 2003 until 2006, I was a post-doc at Aberdeen, before my first appointment at the University of Reading. I joined the School of History, Classics and Archaeology in 2014.

My PhD and first book, on Scotland and the Netherlands, was an attempt to redraft the boundaries of the Scottish enlightenment both chronologically (going back into the 17th century) and geographically (to include Scotland’s relationship with Europe).

In Aberdeen, I worked on a project on the Scots in the 17th century Atlantic and I have been working on Atlantic history ever since. I dislike inward-looking Anglo-centric history and I firmly believe that 17th century Scotland and England were European nations.

My current research project takes me back to Scotland, and aims to write a new intellectual and political biography of William Carstares, churchman, politician, exile and one of the ‘founding fathers’ of the Scottish Enlightenment. He was a fascinating figure whose interests stretched across several countries and included church politics and education.

• Member of the AHRC Peer Review College
• Series editor Politics and Culture in Europe, 1650-1750 (Ashgate)
• Reviews Editor Dutch Crossing. A Journal of Low Countries Studies
• Trustee and Treasurer Scottish Historical Review Trust
• Scotland Rep and Board Member Dutch Academic Network in the UK

• Research in a Nutshell video

Summary of research interests

• Britain & Ireland
• Europe
• Scotland

• Comparative & Global History
• Culture
• Ideas
• Migration
• Politics

• Early Modern
• Eighteenth Century

Broadly speaking, my main interests are in seventeenth century Britain and the wider world. I am especially interested in Scottish history, the Republic of Letters and the early Enlightenment and the wider European and British Atlantic.

My current research focuses on William Carstares and the roots of Scottish moderatism. I also have an on-going interest in the participation of non-English, European and non-national groups in the north-American Atlantic and the Caribbean.

Watch a short video of Dr Mijers speaking about her research interests - Media Hopper

William Carstares. A Political and Intellectual Biography This project will research the career of the Rev. William Carstares, one of King William III's most important advisors on Scottish ecclesiastical and political affairs, and write his long overdue biography, taking into account the Scottish, Dutch, and English aspects of his career.

Europeanising the 'British' Atlantic This project aims to address the concept of the 'British' Atlantic in the seventeenth century. It is concerned with (1) the Europeanisation of the Atlantic, in particular the role played by (i) British, or Scottish, as opposed to English; (ii) European; (iii) non-national groups, and (2) the importance of the Caribbean and Central America as an area of European competititon regarding ideas and practices of empire.

Year 1:

• Historians Toolkit
• The History of Edinburgh: From Din Eidyn to Festival City
• Early Modern History: A Connected World

Year 2:

• Introduction to Historiography
• Themes in Scottish History

Year 3:

• Improving the Nation. Change and Modernisation in Scotland 1660-1730

Year 4:

• The Dutch Miracle: The United Provinces in the Golden Age

MSc:

• Theories of Empire
• 'The Wisest Foll in Christendom': the Ideas and Writings of James VI & I